Leverhulme success for Geography and Environment

The Geography and Environment Department is celebrating a hat trick of staff success.

Dr Eric Neumayer has been named as one of this year's Philip Leverhulme Prize winners - the third person from the department in three consecutive years to win one of these prestigious prizes. With only 22 full time academic members of staff, this is a remarkable concentration of prize winners.

The Leverhulme Trustees announced the results of the 2003 competition this week [29 October]. Each prize is worth £50,000, and 25 have been awarded this year, representing an investment of £1.25 million in astronomy and astrophysics; classics; engineering; geography; philosophy and ethics. The prizes recognise the outstanding research achievements of young scholars of distinction and promise based in UK institutions.

Dr Neumayer is a senior lecturer in environment and development at the School. He is also an alumnus, having completed his master's in development studies at LSE in 1994 and his PhD in 1999. His particular research interests are sustainable development, the determinants of environmental performance, the governance of international trade and investment and the spatial allocation of international flows of development finance.

The award will enable him to finance a partial replacement for his teaching and administrative duties in order to have more time for research. He said: 'I am delighted to receive the prize and most grateful to the Trust in that the prize enables me to concentrate further on research and publishing. Contributing to publicly available knowledge is both very exciting and rewarding.'

He follows in the footsteps of Dr Gilles Duranton who won a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2002, and Dr Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, also of the Geography and Environment department, who was a winner in 2001. Dr Stephen Redding, of the Economics department, was a fellow winner in the 2001 awards.

Professor Paul Cheshire, convenor of the Geography and Environment department, said: 'Only 84 Philip Leverhulme Prizes have ever been awarded and to win three in a row is an amazing achievement from our staff, especially considering we are a comparatively small department. We are all really happy for Eric and offer him our warmest congratulations.'

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